Far behind the girl's eyes, something watches, and is silent.

They don’t answer but she nods anyway, satisfied by whatever she imagines they said. 

She moves to the still-closed bedroom door. There is sobbing behind the thick, carven oak. The blood on the polished marble floor is hot on her bare feet. Slick, and sticky between her toes. It reminds her… her free hand rubs absently at her opposite wrist. At the surgically precise scars there. 

“Knock knock,” she tries cheerfully. The door doesn’t open. Worth a try. She shrugs and kicks the door- her foot leaves a red print on the pale wood. It shudders in its housing, but doesn’t budge. She pouts. Sister is counting on her… sister would be so disappointed. A door won’t stop her. 

She considers the blade in her hand, not-bronze glinting dully in the dim candlelight. It is preternaturally keen, but even so… too long. Help will be coming. Sister doesn’t want a bloodbath. She regards the corpses all about. Well… more of a bloodbath than strictly necessary. Hmm. 

She sticks the keen point into the gap between door and frame, feels the nigh-indestructible point snick against the latch, and puts her entire slight weight behind it. Nothing happens. 

Stupid girl. Use your spells.

She steps away from the door, holds her head.

“Stupid girl,” she repeats. Sister will be so disappointed…

A scroll, girl.

“Useless child,” she says, rubs her scarred wrist absently.

She fumbles at her belt, opens one of the scroll cases, withdraws one of the crisp fresh sheets of vellum.

She holds it flat. Incomprehensible runes, arcane diagrams.

"Adzhalar agnus versthai...", it reads, and on through the spell.

“Boom,” she says. The scroll crumbles to ash in her hand as the door detonates, splinters of carven oak scything through the air like razors. One clips her pale cheek, but she doesn’t feel it. It’s nothing, next to the scars… 

The bedroom is dark. The marble floor glints in the light spilling from the sitting room. The mahogany paneled walls are dark like blood. A chandelier hangs unlit, cut crystals glinting as they turn. The bed is dark and massive, crimson linens and a crimson canopy. The man sits there, red blankets pulled up to his corpulent chest. The man she is here to kill. She almost doesn’t notice the boy cowering behind him. She hadn’t expected a boy here… another guard? He isn’t armed? Isn’t clothed either. Too young to be a guard. Too young for stubble or chest hair. 

“Princess Nerissa?” The man frowns. “I thought…”

She frowns, tilts her head like a too-pale crow that just caught a glimpse of something shiny. 

“No,” the girl replies neutrally. She rubs her wrist again. “Her sister.”

Idiot child, making more work for yourself. Now he has to die.

“He was already going to die,” the girl says aloud.

The man lets out a quiet sob. 

Not the Pontiff. The boy.

“Oh,” the girl says. She hesitates. “Well, he saw my face.” She steps towards the bed, bare feet leaving bloody prints in her wake. 

“Wait,” the man holds up his hands… “Wait! Don’t you know who I am?” 

“Did I get the wrong address?” The girl looks around uncertainly. “The Lord Pontifex of Ardholm City? Lord Ansel?”

“Well…” the man splutters. He glances at the keen point of her sword. He swallows. “Yes… I’m rich.”

“Obviously,” she shrugs and gestures with her sword at the arrayed finery. A thin dribble of crimson follows the motion.

Get it done with, child.

“I could pay you!” The man cries. 

“Yup!” She raises the not-bronze blade. 

“You’re unhinged!” The man covers his head with his flabby arms. 

“Yup!” She strikes. The  Pontifex’s arms fall beside his head. Crimson splatters across crimson sheets. “Now,” she frowns, and turns to the boy- silent this whole time. “What ought I to do with you?”

Just kill him.

“Don’t care,” the boy shrugs. “Got to see him die first. Doesn’t matter what happens now.” 

“Ok,” she agrees, and strikes his head from his shoulders. “What else?” 

You've left evidence. Clean up after yourself.

She nods, wipes her sword clean on the sheets, and sheaths it.

“Right,” she agrees, and withdraws another scroll from the cases at her belt.

The being channels words and power, and a plume of flame springs up. It resolves itself into a vague humanoid shape. Fire and rage and smoke.

She gathers up her cloak, throws it about her shoulders, and slips from the Pontifex’s rooms as the creature begins its incandescent work. Guards bustle past her towards the blaze, but their attention slides off her narrow cloaked shoulders. Sister will be pleased… 

And something watches the girl as she goes about her work.

She returns to the dank little cave beneath the royal palace. Sister doesn't like her to be outside unless absolutely necessary. Doesn't like to risk people seeing her face. 

She flies through her forms, gauntleted hands on the still-bloody eel skin grip. Underhau from the lower left quadrant. The blade flips about nimbly as she steps into her strike, up and to the right. It turns into an oberhau. She steps in again, flips the blade back up. Oberhau from the left. She steps forward. Underhau up from the lower right. One. Oberhau left. Underhau right. Underhau left. Oberhau right. Two. Underhau right. Oberhau left. Oberhau right. Underhau left. Three. Oberhau right. Underhau left. Underhau right. Oberhau left. Four. 

She’s at the far wall of the cave now, bare feet slapping against the cold damp rough hewn floor. She turns around and starts over. One. Two. Three. Four. At the opposite wall now. She turns. One. Two. Three. Four. 

Too slow.

One. Two. Three. Four. Faster this time. 

Clumsy.

She grits her teeth. One. Two. Three. Four. 

Too slow. Useless child, do you expect to fight only invalids?

One. Two. Three. Four. Faster this time.

Slow. Clumsy. Worthless.

She DOES BETTER. 

One. Two. Three. Four. 

What, don't want to be worthless? Be faster. Maybe then your parents would love you.

One. Two. Three. Four. 

Faster!

One two three four. One two three four. One two three four… The damp of the floor flies from her flashing feet. Blood runs from the cut on her pale cheek. She ignores it. 

Onetwothreefour onetwothreefour onetwothreefour… 

Sweat steams from her thin limbs. Her feet are numb. The sounds of her exertions slap off the rough stone walls. Onetwothree… she hesitates. There’s someone behind her. She turns slowly, her heavy breaths sending quick little pants of fog from her mouth. 

A silk dress. Elaborate golden embroidery. A high-necked bodice. Delicate beadwork. A corset. A rich blue velvet cloak, hood pulled far forward. Narrow patent leather shoes. Princess Nerissa. The Uncrowned Queen. 

“You’re hurt,” the young princess gasps, silk-gloved hand to her mouth. 

The girl stares intently at her sister’s beautiful immaculate shoes. She flexes her numb toes, streaked with mud and blood and… who knows. “No?” She tries. 

“Your cheek,” Nerissa says. “You’re bleeding.” 

The girl touches her cheek, glances at her now bloody fingers. She shrugs, and licks them clean.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. 

The princess purses her lips. “I worry about you,” she says. 

Liar. No one worries. No one cares. Always justifying our existence, her rule would be simpler if we were dead and forgotten.

The girl tries to ignore her voice. She shrugs, and moves to the one battered little table she has in her cave, and sets down her sword with a dull thunk. “Grip is ruined,” she sighs. “Again.” She sits and takes up a slender short-bladed knife, and tries not to think about how similar it is to the razors… she has to set down the knife and rub her wrists. 

“Is it done?” Nerissa asks, and moves up behind her sister. 

The girl turns, regards the princess for a long moment. She frowns. She sticks out her tongue, and turns back to her scarred table. 

“I don’t know what that means,” the princess says. 

“Means yes,” the girl replies. “Obviously.” She takes a deep breath, picks up the knife again, slits the stitching that holds the eel skin to the grip, and drops the knife again as quickly as she can. There. Was that so hard?

Useless, ruined child. Can't bring yourself to hold a knife? What use are you to anyone?

“Useless,” the girl mutters. “Ruined.” She peels off the eel skin and sets it aside. 

“How long will it take you to catch another fish?” The princess asks. “Do you need to… I don’t know what. Cure the skin or something? How long will that take?”

“You don’t make any sense,” the girl frowns. 

Nerissa sighs.

“How long will it take you to fix your sword?”

The girl shrugs. “Use wire this time. It’ll clean better. Maybe an hour?”

“Good,” Princess Nerissa pats her sister on one slender shoulder. The girl flinches under the touch. “You weren’t seen?” The princess doesn’t seem to notice her sister’s reaction. 

“I was,” the girl replies. “Seen by loads of people.”

It’s the princess’s turn to flinch.

“Of course, they all died,” the girl finishes, and Nerissa relaxes. 

“Good,” the princess says again. Another pat on a flinching shoulder. “Good.” There are two chairs in the girl’s cave: one wooden and chipped and uneven, the other upholstered and plush. Nerissa sits in the softer chair and regards her sister for a long moment. “It’s been difficult in court,” Nerissa says. “My advisors say something is coming.” 

“I’ll kill it for you,” the girl shrugs, nimble fingers winding copper wire about the sword’s contoured hilt. 

“Something big,” Nerissa replies. “Too big for you. An elder horror from beyond the world. These doomsday cults keep cropping up everywhere.” 

“Oh,” the girl replies, because the pause indicates that she should say something and she has no idea what else would fit. 

“It’s complicated,” the princess elaborates, “because I can’t send the guard unless they are proven to have broken the law, and too often that proof is within their secret sanctuaries and chapels. Exactly the sort of place that we would raid- if only we had proof.” 

“And not worshipping Ard,” the girl replies. “That’s not enough? No inquisition?”

“We worked too hard to limit the church’s power to be giving it back to them now,” Nerissa replies primly. 

Yes, play! Pull their faith like cotton, scatter the flock like snow. How long have we for play?

“Ok,” the girl grins. “How long?” She asks for the voice because she knows her sister doesn’t hear it. 

“How long?” Nerissa repeats with a frown on her pale brows. “Ah. As quickly as possible. Tonight, if that is feasible.” 

“Tonight,” the girl says. 

One night? Long enough. How many could there be? Dozens? How many to mourn them? Hundreds? Enough that children will weep at the story for centuries... Take them to pieces, cult and flesh!

“Ok,” the girl says brightly. Her fingers work faster, braiding the copper wire into a grip.  “One bloodbath, coming right up.” 

“No,” the princess says sternly. “Not a bloodbath. Just…” she swallows, grimaces. “Just what’s necessary.” 

“Right,” the girl grins impishly. “One necessary bloodbath.” 

The princess sighs.

“What spells did you use? Do you need any scrolls replaced?”

“One boom and one burning man,” the girl replies. 

“I don't…” Nerissa sighs. “Those aren’t spells.”

"Knock", and "Summon Elemental Creature", moronic child.

She repeats the names. 

“I’ll send the arcanist then,” the princess stands. 

“No!” The girl stands too, her chair crashing against the rough floor. “Nonononono…” 

She remembers… 

Bare feet drummed on flagstone. Bloody marks where she tore her own skin. Firm fingers on her slender arms. The stone table. 

This was before the voice, but not much before. No one to keep her company. No one to suffer with her. 

“This is the spare?” The man’s face was as thin as his voice. His nose was like a scalpel. His fingers were nothing more than skin-clad bones. His eyes were dark, but they glittered with that darkness, and with the black desires they concealed. His hair was long, but combed back into an immaculately groomed braid. His cloak was fine velvet, embroidered with the unintelligible runes and sigils of his office. Adrian Adney. 

Oh how she hates that man…

“Arcanist Adney. This is the spare,” her grandfather had confirmed. King Ronan. Father of her mother. He was old, but his hands were strong, and she was small. 

“Beautiful child,” the arcanist knelt. He ran one skeletal finger along one pale trembling cheek. She tried to recoil from him, but there were her grandfather’s hands, holding her in place. 

“Grandpa?” Her voice was as thin as her wrists. The elderly king ignored her. 

“You will want to leave her with me, your majesty” Adrian said. “There will be pain. You will not wish to see.” 

“I will stay,” King Ronan had replied. His face has been too high, too shadowed, for her to see what expression was there, no matter how she had craned her neck. His voice had been too even, too perfectly controlled. 

“Grandpa?” Her voice was wavering now. She tried never to cry. Always to hold herself with the composure expected of a princess of Ardholm. Those forbidden tears had been clawing at the corners of her eyes here… 

“I will stay,” the king had said again. Again he ignored his granddaughter’s plea. “If I shall do this thing to her, then I think… If she must endure it, than I must at least watch it.” 

“Ahhh,” Adrian had sighed. “Great king, you are strong, but… careful your majesty lest that strength be your undoing.” 

“Watch your tongue,” the king had snapped. “It isn’t too late to give you to the inquisition.” 

“Yes, your majesty, I’m afraid it is,” the arcanist straightened. “Still. Stay if you wish, though I’m afraid you will come to regret that choice.”  

They had taken her then, to a chamber. A chamber that she hadn’t known existed. She had thought she had explored the entire castle- even the forbidden dungeons. She had been wrong. It wasn’t the sort of chamber one would expect for black rituals and forbidden surgeries. No bone alters. No goblets of blood. Just featureless unfeeling flagstone and dull brass grates over the many drains. Bright lanterns, and clean tin trays gleaming with their light. Precise razor instruments and faded peeling tomes. Endless cabinets and racks of clear glass vials. And, of course, the stone table. 

It was set in a rotating base, geared and articulated and stone. There were grooves and drains in its surface, and a precisely chiseled hexagram. Thick leather straps too, and complicated shining buckles. 

Oh how she had fought. Oh how she had kicked and screamed. Nothing like how she would kick and scream later, when the arcanist took up his knives. Oh how she had fought. It hadn’t mattered of course; one young girl against two grown men? And then later, a young girl pulling against thick bands of leather and steel? It had been inevitable. 

And then the voice…

Broken. Lost. Do you hear me?

She’s standing, still. Her chair has another chip in the back rest. Her sister backing away slowly. The sword is in her hand, unfinished grip pricking her palm. She sets it carefully down on the oft-scarred table. A table. A normal table. A battered wooden table. 

Child.

The voice. She tries not to remember where it came from, but the memories are there, circling like predatory aquatic beasts. 

What do you see, child?

“Table,” she says. “Chair. Sister. Sister’s chair. Sword…” she reaches out one trembling hand. 

What do you smell, child?

“Salt,” she says. She closes her eyes. “Perfume. Blood.” 

What do you feel?

“Cold,” she moves her toes. “Wet.” 

What do you hear?

“Dripping.” She opens her eyes. “Heartbeat. Breathing. Blood.” 

Here, foolish girl. You must be here. Breathe out your thoughts, breathe in the present. Your failures do not weigh on you alone.

“Be here,” she takes a deep breath. “I am here. It is now. No knives. Blood on the inside.” 

“I’ll send him in,” Nerissa says, holds up her thin gloved hands. “He will help.” 

“No!” The girl grabs for… something… anything… But her sister is already gone. She can feel the arcanist nearing. She can feel his spells on her thin limbs, holding her like the leather straps did so long ago. Stilling her… does he know? That she would kill him if she got the chance? Not the voice, though it would delight in the act as well. Her. SHE would kill him. She would enjoy it. She would peel the sinews from his bones… 

And then his spells lie on her fully, and she sleeps.

… she hates this table. The voice does too, but it doesn’t seem to understand the visceral, limb-shaking revulsion she has for it. She would struggle and thrash- no matter how useless- were it not for the spells holding her musculature flaccid. 

“Marvelous,” Adrian Adney hums. “Truly marvelous.” He holds his hands just so, speaks the alien unintelligible words, and the shallow wound on her cheek knits itself back together. “Now.” He claps his hands together. “I understand you used a pair of scrolls?”

She wears her hatred on her face and holds her tongue. 

“Yes,” Adrian continues as if she had replied. “Well. We shall have to replace those. First though, a few tests.” He flips open a heavy leather-bound tome, runs one bony finger down the vellum page. “How are you finding the integration? I believe last time your words were…. Ah. ‘Unintelligible screaming.’ Does that remain the best way to describe your condition?” 

She huffs, and strains against the spell- to predictably negligible effect. 

Patience, child. The fool's reckoning will build until he is consumed by it.

“It’s been seven Ard-damned years,” she spits. “Or… ten?” 

Eight years.

Seven months, nineteen days. As of this evening.

“One day,” she grumbles. “One day one day one day. When?” 

“When what, princess?” Adrian bends toward her. 

She glowers at him, but doesn’t respond. 

“Hmm,” Adrian sniffs. “Subject remains uncooperative.” He makes a note on the thick vellum page. “Subject is presently unresponsive to verbal stimuli, though subject’s eyes track on author suggestive of understanding. Unknown if subject is unable or unwilling to respond. Subject’s living relation made no indication of behavior outside of subject’s baseline- weak evidence that subject’s cognition has not further degraded. Does that seem accurate, Princess?” He sets down his quill. 

She doesn’t respond. 

“Hmm.” The arcanist shakes his head. “Do please cooperate. It’s for my research. Your procedure may have been… less successful than may have been hoped, but there’s no reason why the next one has to be as well.” 

She works her mouth soundlessly for a moment. Adrien draws closer, and she launches a thick wad of saliva onto his pristine velvet robes. 

The slap echoes off the grey flagstone walls. Her cheek stings, but she smiles broadly. 

A good effort, child, but his hostility does not benefit us. No point losing ground on small battles.

“Later”, the girl agrees. 

“Hmm.” Adrien says, wiping at his front with a kerchief. “You still hear your voice I presume? Fascinating. We had predicted it would be subsumed in the procedure, yet it still hasn’t faded.” He takes up the quill and makes a quick note. “I continue to wonder if that is the source of your madness. Still, the aetheric waves remain within half a degree of convergence. I don’t think even a god could separate you. That part of the procedure at least, remains a success. Strength and speed of reflexes likewise, if your antics in the Pontifex’s manor are any indication. I don’t think we’re seeing any degradation there. Hmm.” 

Adrien circles his subject. “Estimating visual age remains difficult. Over the first five years, your aging seems to have proceeded as normal, then begun slowing. Teenage years are all… similarly hale. It makes estimation difficult. I previously estimated you would cease aging entirely by real age twenty seven, appearance age nineteen. Does that feel accurate to you?”

No reply is forthcoming. 

“Yes,” Adrien says. “Well. Good. That has promise for extension of life. And the inhibitor?” He waves a gold-flecked jade wand over her chest. “Yes. Good. Still in place. Still functioning nominally.” 

No. Functioning poorly. Making things worse.

“You should remove it,” she suggests. 

Yesss... Good! Be persuasive, stupid creature, argue the point!

“Ah.” Adrien says. “At last she speaks. Or has your so-called voice attained the power of speech audible outside of your ruined little mind?”

“Fuck you,” she spits. 

Just like that. Except different in every way. Try "It's interfering with your data, you idiot charlatan. You'll never fix your mistakes if you can't even clearly see what you've done."

“Interesting,” Adrien makes another note. “If… somewhat inconclusive.” 

“It is interfering with your experiment,” the girl says carefully.

No. Do better.

“Shut up. This is the best I can do. It’s interfering with your experiment and… and… uh. You ought to remove it for cleaner data.”

“No.” Adrien says. “Did your voice tell you that if I do, it will break free and eat your mind? Well, whatever remains of it.” 

Why would I bother? Infantile and shattered, it would not hold me back. Tell him we would be stronger.

“You’re lying!” She yells. “I did what you said and you’re lying! You want to eat my mind!” 

Stupid, useless child. Little enough to eat, nothing to sate me.

“Fascinating,” Adrien humms. “Well, I could sit here listening to you jabber on all day, but your sister would have my head. Have fun hunting cultists. Try not to ruin the experiment by dying.” 

He works his spell, all impossible gestures and alien words. Artificial arcane sleep comes over her.

She wakes in her cave. Adrien Adney’s spells are the only time she can sleep, and her cave has no bed. Someone left her in a jumbled heap in the cold and damp of the floor. She straightens her limbs. The joints ache. 

Finally. Useless and lazy, you have work to do. Stand.

“Would you eat my mind?” She asks. She lies on her back, the damp soaking through her shirt and tingling along her spine. 

What is there left to eat? Get up, we have cultists to handle. This is the good part, don't ruin it.

“What if I don’t want to?” She asks. “You want to eat my mind. Maybe I don’t want to do what you say.” There is a battered a chipped earthenware bowl on her table- soup? It smells like soup. Left by Elanor the housekeeper, she assumes- the caretaker some part of her mind supplies. Wholly her mind. The babysitter. The woman whose job is transparently to keep her from causing too many problems…

Your sister will be disappointed, girl.

“So? She’s been disappointed before.” 

Yes. And when she is disappointed, we have less value to her. If she can't trust us with her important missions, there is no reason for the arcanist to let us out. Do you understand, idiot child?

“I understand,” she nods. “I’ll finish the sword.” She stands, ignores the way her joints complain, takes a few bites of Elanor’s soup, and sets to work. 

Sister doesn’t like for her to move through the streets, but leaping from rooftop to rooftop is so much harder. The girl is grumpy, upset, distracted. She doesn’t want to bother. The cloak’s enchantments will shield her from attention anyway, so she doesn’t see that it matters. 

The cobblestone streets are arranged into neat little grids, but those grids change from quadrant to quadrant in order to follow the contours of the high cliff that splits Ardholm City into two parts. Two parts, but not halves. The higher quadrants are fewer and less populated than the lower- themselves smaller than the sprawling foetid slums that hang about the city’s walls like stinking rotting brats clinging to their mother’s skirts. 

The cultists meet in the high quadrants. That had surprised her. The basement of a North End apartment complex. The buildings here are tall- four, sometimes five stories, with slick tiled roofs. That of course is one reason she doesn’t want to try navigating a rooftop route to her destination; risk of falling is greater here, and a fall would hurt more. Wouldn’t kill her of course. Not anymore. But it would hurt. 

The walls of the buildings’ lower floors are made of hard grey stone, stacked and mortared. Too difficult for even her monstrous muscles to trivially breach. The upper floors though are all of overhanging timber and plaster. That, she could shoulder through easily enough, if only her quarry weren’t in a basement. 

People bustle past her, all finely dressed and supremely important. Embroidered velvet vests and soft linen shirts… stylish half-capes and high boots. Long silken dresses and tight whalebone corsets… dainty little colorful shoes and enormous feathered hats. 

Vanishingly few of the men and women here are visibly armed. Perhaps a slender blade concealed within the black lacquered shaft of a cane. Perhaps a short knife under a petticoat. Perhaps. Mostly, if they feel the need for protection, they bring with them hard-eyed mercenaries or house armsmen- and there are indeed a few of those about in their quilted jerkins or tough leathers. They all ignore her, with her tattered trousers and bloodied shirt. Her heavy battlefield sword slung at her hip, her scarred gauntlets, and scroll cases at her belt. It’s the cloak, she knows. It doesn’t render her invisible: that would be much too powerful of an enchantment to lie on a cloak given to a broken little girl. And anyway, there are ways of defeating invisibility. True seeing, detection based on alignment rather than sight, the various monsters of the worlds which hunt by smell or sound. No, her cloak is something simpler. It deflects attention. The pedestrians see her, hear her, brush up against her even when she doesn’t recoil quickly enough. But they don’t notice her. Don’t remember her unless she does something exceptionally stupid…

What do you want?

“What do I want?” She hesitates.

A few of the passers-by turn to look, but she doesn’t hold their interest and they move on, forgetting quickly. 

Yes. What are your goals? Or desires, or whims if you are too small for anything greater. It's never seemed like you have any. Makes you difficult to negotiate with.

“Hmm.” The girl starts moving again. “Candied chestnuts,” she answers after a moment. 

I didn't mean that small. Why, in the names of all of the seventeen hells and of all the demons imprisoned there?

“Idiot child,” she sighs, though the voice hadn’t said it this time. “How should I know? Because they don’t hurt us, I guess. Candied chestnuts.” 

Candied chestnuts. Hm.

No malice, this time.

Handle this by my preference, and I will get us as many candied chestnuts as you could desire. Enough to fill your mad, broken heart.

“Yes,” the girl allows. “But I control the legs. And the arms. And the rest of the body. You just read the magic scrolls and say mean things. I don’t need mean words to get chestnuts.” 

You doubt me? I could obtain you chestnuts using mean words. But no, I know many things that would not occur to you in your madness.

“I know about money, I just forget sometimes.” 

Forget?

“Yes,” the girl nods, though even after all these years she isn’t sure if the voice can see her or not. “But I think that’s because we were a princess, not because I’m insane. People gave us stuff then. We learned to just ask for things, not to pay. It matters to an impressionable young mind.” 

We, princess? Was it "we", when gods would come to beg me mercy? When you slept in a bed?

“She was a princess,” the girl corrects quickly, glances swiftly about like a wounded sparrow sheltering beneath a leaf. “She slept in a bed. We’re different now.” 

I am not your dark conscience, girl. I am not a part of you, and you should remember that. But I am better to have as an ally than an enemy, and I know more tricks than currency. Remember that too.

This is not the first time it has tried such tactics, only… sometimes she has so much trouble getting along…

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “Sure. Doesn’t matter. ‘S long as sis’ isn’t disappointed. What do you want?” 

We do this my way. Faith is a thing worth defiling, ruined child. One night is little, but it can be enough. Such a night will be remembered...

“Fine,” she shrugs. “Sure. I don’t care. As long as sister is happy. And afterwards, candied chestnuts.”

Of course. As many as your fractured heart desires.

“Many,” she confirms. 

The girl stops in front of one of the lavish north side apartments. Its lower level is given over to a clothing boutique, but entirely too many armed and armored guards stand discreetly about in the shop’s various nooks and crannies. Are they cultists too, or merely hired mercenaries? Doesn’t matter. Sister said a necessary bloodbath… probably… that seems right at least? 

Yesss... But not just blood, moronic child. It is time to play!

“Right,” the girl agrees. The guards don’t notice her. “First we play. So what’s the plan?” 

“They’re not going to notice me,” the girl says. “I have my cloak.”

They notice what they are looking for. But they are paid guards, they are looking for trespassers.

“Nah,” she strides through the crowded store, bare feet dancing to avoid the boots and stiletto heels of the patrons. 

Idiot child. I have seen the function of your particular Anonymity Cloak. It will not permit you through a guarded door without comment.

“Got me out of the priest man’s manor,” she retorts petulantly. 

Yes. The guards there were looking for their master, not for an intruder. They did not expect to see someone coming the other way, so the cloak sufficed to ensure they didn't. The distinction is obvious.

“Well?” The girl shrugs even though the voice might not be able to see. “What do you suggest then? Lock the door and stab them all?” She loosens her ancient sword in the new leather of its sheath. “I can do stabbing, but I thought you wanted subtly?”

There are degrees of subtlety, foolish one. Your mind is as tiny as it is broken.

“Broken,” she confirms, but hesitates. 

You are a delivery girl, here on an errand, but scared, and directed to the back room for a terrible fate. Breathe in the truth, breathe out the lie.

“Fine,” she shrugs again. “Chestnuts.” 

The girl makes her way towards the back room. 

A heavy oaken door set back between two racks of satin dresses and flanked by a pair of tall scarred men, arming swords and cudgels at their hips and padded gambesons at their chests. Her goal, she assumes. She tries to push through, but… 

“What are you doing?” One of the men demands. “Off limits to customers.” His eyes can’t seem to focus on her face, on the sword at her hip, at the blood on her sleeves or the gauntlets on her petite hands. 

“Obviously,” she replies, and rolls her eyes. 

Too much, don't draw attention.

“I’m a delivery girl!”

Correct. And you are afraid. Be afraid.

“I am very afraid,” she says cheerfully. “I am being sent to the back room for a terrible fate.” 

“…” says one of the men. 

“What?” Asks the other. 

What. I have never known an idiot as foolish as you. If I have ever had the misfortune to meet a less competent creature I must have reduced them to dust long before I realized their true ineptitude. Repeat my words exactly: "Sorry, I don't really understand, a man asked me to-"

The first man wraps one meaty fist around her narrow wrist. “What do you know of th…” he begins, but never finishes. 

The girl takes out her sword in a flash, and rams it through his chest. His words choke off. He sputters. Blood spurs bright across the bright dresses. 

The girl brushes her cloak back, out of her way as it’s magic retreats from her. Elsewhere, someone screams high and shrill. 

Useless! Move quickly, now! You must deal with the guards before the cultists notice you.

The second man moves fast. His scratched and chipped short blade is in his hand even before the girl can wrestle her own out of his dead compatriot. The guard sweeps his sword in a brutal formless horizontal cut from the draw. 

She leans her thin body out of the way, leverages her colossal unnatural strength to lift her own sword disregarding the weight of the corpse still clinging wetly to it. Steel rings off of whatever ancient alloy her ancient sword is forged from. 

A herculean heave slings the corpse into its compatriot like a missile. “Useless,” the girl agrees, and clutches at her head with her free hand. 

Press the advantage! This one is better than he looks.

The man staggers beneath the dead weight of his comrade, backpedals quickly to buy some time, and brings his guard up. He eyes the girl wearily, fumbles at his belt… a whistle? A scroll? A more exotic magic item? 

One. Two. Three. Four. She launches into the most basic sword drill that absolutely every novice learns. He knows what to expect, but no mere mortal can keep up with the blinding speed of her altered limbs. Underhau from where her sword ended up after dislodging that body. Her blade rings off of his, but the motion has already organically become another strike. Another parry, a tiny flake of steel ricochets from the locked blades. She turns the recoil into a reset, an oberhau from the other side. Again his blade is there, but sweat shows on his scowling face. No time to go for whatever is at his belt. 

The girl’s long old sword slides from his sword in an incongruous shower of sparks, and comes up from the right in the final blow of the form. This time he is too slow and the ancient enchanted blade cuts keenly through the padding and muscle at his thigh. Driven by the girl’s enhanced muscles, it continues through the femur with a shudder that shakes the joint at her shoulder. Through the pelvis, and up, up… she withdraws her blade just past his navel and a mess of steaming lacerated intestines spill to the increasingly slick hardwood flooring. 

Got to deal with the rest of them, now. Get anyone who saw, or who could come looking, and don't dawdle.

“But they’re running away,” she complains. “Not a threat. You want me to… what? Keep them here somehow?”

The patrons mostly mill about aimlessly screaming, or shouting for the absent city watch but a few enterprising men and women break for the door. The store’s two surviving guards advance wearily across the wide room, blades in trembling hands. 

Too SLOW, girl! Catch that guard, the young one, he looks weak-willed. Get him out of sight of the other guards and get me a Suggestion scroll.

“Scramble the brains,” the girl replies cheerfully, “just like me.” She draws out one of the flimsy vellum scrolls, and bats aside the youngest guard’s blade with a lightning fast winden. 

He squeaks indecorously and grips a lacerated wrist tight as his sword’s pristine brass guard rings against the floorboards. His eyes are wide, his face pale. It’s too early for that much blood to leak from the wound in his wrist, but the girl doesn’t remember enough about neurotypical expressions to recall what else it could mean. 

The voice reads. "Dip your sword in the blood of the corpses. Run to tell the guards that you didn't do it, that it was a monster, that you think you're possessed."

Now, stay out of sight and get through the door.

The girl cleans her ancient sword quickly, and proceeds through the heavy back room door. 

Seal the door. Lock and hinges.

The girl dutifully crushes the brass hinges in her no-longer-quite-human hands, and jams the wrought iron bolt. Then turns. Swallows nervously. Wishes for a little light. 

Instead of the normal piled crates and cramped storage room, a single damp stone staircase wanders blackly downwards. Through a hastily walled-off section of dripping sewer then deeper and deeper still. The stair widens to a semi-natural cavern with a number of conveniently labeled doors set into the not-quite-walls. “Chapel,” one reads. Quarters for the more permanent members of the cult’s clergy. The office of the high priest. Storage rooms. 

All about the rough floor, ancient masonry lies tumbled. Fluted shattered marble columns with newer sharp-edged runes that hurt to look at. The crumbling remains of marble-faced walls. Shattered mosaics that could have been a floor once… or maybe a ceiling. The ruins of old Agraphael from back when the Doom first came and long buried by one of the dozens of tectonic upheavals to which the Prime Material has been subjected. 

Your failures do not seem to have interrupted us yet, moronic child. We will visit their high priest, first.

She nods once, briskly. “Sword or no sword?” She wonders aloud. “Sword?” She approaches the door cautiously. “Knock knock?” She tries. It’s bound to work one of these days…

Sword. You might need to block the door, if he tries to close it. And be ready to block his scream, do not repeat your lethargy from upstairs.

The door opens with the soundless lassitude of well-oiled hinges and a confident resident. 

The man is tall, and powerfully built. His hands are calloused from handling rope, his face stained by days laboring beneath the sun. His eyes hold the desperation of one who has drowned… 

He wears the burnt-umber robes of the priesthood of Ard, god of men, but profaned. Marked with the same jagged, eye-tearing runes as the pillars, stitched in green or black or blue or purple. The colors of bruised flesh, contrasting jarringly with the robes. Torn at the sleeves, bare footed, devoid of any of the gold or jewelry of Ard’s priests. A mockery of their finery. 

“Yes, my child?” He asks. His eyes look past her. He blinks. Tries to focus subconsciously, but his gaze keeps sliding off her thin face. Her cloak clings tightly to her shoulders like the pauldrons of a suit of heavy armor. 

“I’m not really sure what to do now,” she says. “They never open the door. Usually it’s a boom and then a necessary bloodbath? I think we’re doing something different this time though.” The unpinns the broach at her throat, drapes her cloak over her free arm, and steps into the cramped little room. 

Close the door behind you. This could be a little while.

She closes the door ang glances about. 

It’s a narrow alcove carved from the living rock by ancient ruination. At the far end is another door, closed and marked with a terrible sigil. Sagging bookshelves decorate the walls with their rows of damp-ruined books. A single desk dominates the center of the chamber, made of thick ocean-battered timber. Shattered coral lies decoratively over the surface. A guttering oil lamp. A slender wicked-looking dagger of some dark metal. 

“Nerissa?” The man frowns as her cloak’s magic fades. “Uh, my queen? Your majesty?” His voice is deep and sonorous, but scratchy around the edges

“Close! Her sister.” 

Ask him, does he believe in his god?

She relays the message because for some reason people persist in being unable to hear the voice even when it’s RIGHT THERE. This, she decides, is because she is insane. It’s not a pleasant feeling, being insane…

“Obviously,” the high priest replies, maneuvering around her towards his desk. “I’ve seen it.” His voice is compelling. Deep. Like the ebb and flow of the tide. “Not a god as you’re used to, but a deep thing. Inexorable and mighty as the sea itself!” 

"Good. Then you have faith?"

“Faith enough in my god, and faith in the ruin it will bring. I do not expect to survive that ruin and nothing you can do to me can compare to what my god brings.” 

he lunges for the dagger. 

Perfect. Let us test that.

A dagger… so like a knife… The girl skewers him through his scarred, reaching, wrist- ancient sword transfixing him to the table like a butterfly on a pin. He doesn’t cry out, merely reaches with his other hand and she delivers a brutal punch to the back of his head. That seems to stop the attempt. 

Still, he doesn’t cry out though he does grit his teeth. “Purity from pain,” he grates out. “Purity of purpose. As the Doom unmakes, so shall I be unmade.”

Correct. Let us begin.

Girl, break a rib. The rest of this will be easier if it hurts him to breathe.

“That won’t be hard. Humans are fragile.” 

A fleeting look of fear comes over the man’s quickly schooled features. 

She smiles sweetly, because really the voice is nice so rarely… And drives her hand into the man’s side. Hard. Not quite as hard as her enhanced muscles can manage, but with far greater force than merely mortal muscles could ever hope to match. She can feel the bone splinter. Can feel the shattered ends grinding against each other. 

He does cry out, this time. And sucks in a quick pained breath immediately after. 

Good girl. Pin his other arm back, now. Lift the shoulder so he can't lie flat.

“Like this?” The girl frowns, withdraws her blade from the table, maneuvers it carefully. He cries out as the blade moves in his split hand. She turns it, and feeds it slowly farther, through his other palm. “You want like…. In the table? Because I think he could just slide off of this? Or… well, it’s a sword. He could… cut the rest of the way through? He would have half hands, but…. Spells? I don’t know?” 

The man grits his teeth to hold in his suffering. To let it purify him. “Purity in pain, purity of purpose.”

Pin it to the table, yes. Spread like for a crucifixion. It doesn't matter if he pulls free. You just need to be ready to catch him.

“Ah.” She does as directed, making use of the dagger. “That makes sense I guess?” She presses her sword fully half of its length into the table because it would be REALLY inconvenient if he could make use of it in any way. “This is a lot more fun than being the one affixed to the table,” she says to no one in particular. 

Understandable. Tell him we'd like to hear about his faith. He should explain himself. Who is his god? What do they desire?

“My god is the Doom of Agraphael,” the priest’s back arches in religious fervor. His hands tear where they pull against the blades transfixing him to the table. “The breaker of towers! The lord of the deeps! That which comes from the seas, that which brings the pounding surf. The god of madness and the god of drowning.” He speaks names then, but names which it is impossible to understand or remember or even to write. Names which have no related sounds any human mouth is capable of forming. 

The girl abruptly recalls a story told to children in Ardholm:

Recall the Doom of Agraphael, which came upon them in the Summer of the Long Grass, year three hundred ninety first of the twelfth age. Recall their high walls and their shining towers. Recall their proud castle on the shores of the Narrow Sea. 

Recall their golden fields of grain and their verdant hills and their cheery farmers; recall their strong keeps and their sprawling colleges and their proud warriors and learned arcanists. Recall the great works of Agraphael and recall when they were cast into the sea. 

Recall the welling tides and the pounding surf and recall the Doom of Agraphael. 

Recall when men went mad and offered up their sons to the Lord of the Deeps. Recall when their soldiers threw down their arms and danced naked in the streets. Recall when their priests profaned their alters and beggars ate their kings and Doom came to Agraphael. 

Recall when fruit rotted on the branch and fields wilted unplowed and the sea came to Agraphael. When ships were snatched from their harbors and dashed across the peaks of the tallest mountains. When waves threw down the highest walls and the proudest castles and Doom came upon Agraphael. 

Recall when the seas retreated to their shores and the Lord of the Deeps returned to its ocean bed and slumber came upon the Doom of Agraphael. Recall how once-green hills had become dunes of sand and fields of grain had become bowls of dust and cities had become tombs. 

When your child asks, “why fear the sea?” look upon them and say, “Recall the Doom of Agraphael.” 

The girl is now very extremely alarmed. 

Hah! Do not lose your nerve merely because a foe is strong! You are weak, girl! Even with my stolen might carved into your bones! Rejoice in it! This one serves the deep, so we shall offer him its blessing. Fetch water from the basin.

The girl fetches water from the basin, silently, but her thin hands tremble. Chestnuts… Do what the voice asks. Do it right, and… chestnuts. And these people- these cultists- need to die anyway, no matter what they worship or else sister will be so disappointed…

Tilt his head back, and his chin up. Hold his head still, pour water onto his face. Into his nose.

He sputters and thrashes as the girl does as directed. Her trembling hands slosh as much water on the floor as in his mouth, but it is a big basin. 

He is welcome to thrash, and she is welcome to spill the water. After a little while, the voice will direct her to break some bones in his foot, before returning to waterboarding. Then break another rib.

She does as she’s told, because there are chestnuts in her future! 

In between the buckets of water, the man gasps and splutters out profane prayers. 

After a while, the voice starts encouraging some personal volition. Would he rather some more water, or a punch to the gut? Can he demonstrate a sermon? It will hurt less if he follows along.

It takes a very long time, but eventually the man does. Somewhat. He will happily begin a sermon- crazed ramblings about how drowning is the most merciful of deaths, about how insanity is freeing, about how the grain has no right to fight the scythe. 

He overwhelmingly prefers blunt force trauma to more water. 

The voice hasn’t insulted her in a while and this is good! She’s trying her best. 

She is also happy to explain exactly how not-freeing insanity is. 

The voice is happy to permit the two to chatter about the relative merits of insanity. Eventually, it will begin offering the choice. "Renounce your faith and you can have another broken rib instead of another minute of drowning." If the cultist rejects the offer, it shall improve. This produces a virtuous incentive gradient where the man is encouraged to accept more pain.

It takes a long time. A very long time, and many basins of water. 

“For a worshipper of a drowning god,” the girl speculates, “it seems a little heretical to want not to drown?” She enthusiastically pours another bucket of water on his face. “But then again, I’m a Royalist, not an Ardist. Religion isn’t really my strong suit. Stabbing is. And pouring water, apparently.”

Eventually, between bouts of coughing and gasping, the priest renounces his faith. 

"Good, good. You've done well."

A cult leader will have a healing potion around somewhere. There is mortar missing from a stone next to his bed. Move the stone.

Good? Good! She did good! The girl dances over to the stone, moves the heavy lump with a twitch of superhuman muscles, and finds a tiny stash of potions in the damp alcove beneath. A broad squarish bottle of something translucent and ochre. A tiny diamond-shaped bottle of something opaque and quicksilver-golden. A handful of rounded teardrop vials of something iridescently green. The crimson wax sealing the corks is stamped with the crest of the trading house O’niel. 

The voice didn't mean her, but neither is it paying enough attention to correct the misapprehension.

You don't have a scroll for this one, but it is simple, your body is strong enough for it. Repeat my words phonetically and exactly.

The spell is twelve syllables, a simple piece of magic detection.

She does the magic- almost botches a syllable because… well… chestnuts! But the spell takes, and meaning twists into their shared mind. 

In order: Owl’s Wisdom, Fox’s Cunning, and Lesser Heal. 

Remove the blades and feed him a healing potion. We need him more presentable to meet the flock. Take the other potions with you. Ask him if they had any plans for this evening.

She does as directed, and the priest’s wounds flow scarlessly closed. 

There is a celebration of the tides tonight, in which the majority of the flock will be in attendance. Those whose duties as city watch wouldn’t make their absence notable. 

They also intend to sacrifice a slave via drowning. The priest speaks about this at length and with great anticipation.  

"Oh, how wonderful! A sacrifice! Who is the slave, someone worthy?"

Just some half-elvish healer without any meaningful power. Her mother was supposedly taken from Dath Lomin itself, and her father was a sailor aboard the Shell Islander slaver’s galley that captured the mother. This is why the daughter was selected for sacrifice: an eternal life sacrificed is a greater gift than a mortal one, and someone conceived aboard a ship is a fitting sacrifice to the lord of the deeps. 

"Oh my! What an amateur mistake! Perhaps I could have expected no better of one who would renounce his god over a little pain. No, the worthiest sacrifices are obviously those that have the most faith. Now who in your little congregation has the most faith, do you think? No, don't look so concerned. It couldn't be you. You renounced your god, you are nothing to it now."

“…” the priest says. He rubs at his now-healed wounds. “That would be the Speaker for the Sacrament of Drowning…. Err… he gives the lesson while I…” he glances at the basin. 

"Hm. I'm not sure I trust your assessment of his character. I would have figured you were worthy, after all. Who's to say he'll do any better. We should check. Take us to him."

“He is in the storage room with the slave… ought I to call him, or… I’ll take you to him I suppose.” 

The storage room is larger than the priest’s quarters, but not by much. Mouldering crates lie all about, as well as a not-quite-large-enough rust-reddened cage. A bound, gagged, and blindfolded half-elven girl trembles within. A large man in the same profaned ocher robes sits on a crate nearby, scarred hands whittling away, a small mountain of wood shavings about his feet. 

"He has potential, but he'll need to be tested. Explain the issue to him."

The priest explains with that deep compelling orrator’s voice- about how the Doom requires a worthier sacrifice than a slave, about the speaker’s peerless dedication. 

The speaker stands proudly. “I would be honored to serve,” he bows his head. 

“Right,” the girl hefts her preternaturally keen sword. “One butchery, coming right up.” 

“Ah,” the speaker smiles. “Beautiful child… I see our lord of madness has already touched the princess’s mind. Truly our victory is assured.” 

“Oh she’s crazy,” the girl snarls “Oh she’s… shut up about the crazy! Everyone knows I’m the princess with the broken brain. It’s not news anymore! Well she’s not a princess anymore, and she’s tired of hearing how crazy she is!”

The girl rams her blade through the man’s shoulder, pins him to the crate behind. “Voice?” She says. “Hurt him.” 

The voice will oblige.

The speaker suffers a truly astonishing amount of pain before recanting, but their faith is about madness and death. Agony eventually breaks it. 

"No, priest, you seem to have been wrong. This one was not worthy. Speaker, you have a chance to redeem yourself. Who here is more loyal than you? Find them for us."

The speaker is not yet verbal, gasping and panting long after his wounds are closed. 

The priest glances at the ruin of his speaker, bites his lip. “What? Um… the acolyte of the abyss, I would suppose?” 

They can give him a moment, but the voice doesn't have much regard for the feelings of wayward cultists.

"An acolyte? We shall see."

She is a short, reedy little acolyte in stained ocher robes. One could be forgiven for assuming she has gnomish or halfling blood somewhere in her ancestry, but otherwise unremarkable features. 

“Priest,” she bows as she enters. “Speaker,” she bows somewhat less deeply. “How may your humble servant assist you?” 

"We seek one who is worthy. Are you worthy, child?"

“Probably not,” the acolyte replies, “but I am willing to try. What must I do?” 

"Your god is one of madness and oblivion. We must test your limits, and see where your faith falls between those lines. Priest, you should take responsibility for this search."

The priest takes some convincing, but not as much as might be expected. Certainly he is more comfortable dealing pain than receiving it, and is as enthusiastic about drowning others as he was horrified of drowning himself. 

The acolyte breaks quickly. 

"Disappointing. We may need to be more efficient. Call the flock together for the sacrifice, we shall proceed when we have more candidates available."

The flock is called- those who are present, that is. The commotion in the store above prevents summoning those members who are not currently within the cave complex. 

Good enough.

Encourage them to continue testing their preferred candidates.

They do, but it becomes increasingly obvious that they are only doing so from fear, and that fear has begun to fade. 

Nonetheless, torture happens and devoted cultists recant their beliefs after shorter and shorter experiences of agony. 

“Enough,” the priest says eventually, likely recalling his own experiences and his assumption that the girl and her voice are not in fact sent by his god. “My children, listen. We have been tried. We have been tested…” 

The girl stabs him through his open mouth, and watches with mild amusement as he drowns on his own blood. “Right,” she says. “Well. They stopped cooperating. Bloodbath time?” 

We can do a little more! Say something to the lesser cultists about how you have rescued them from the tyranny of their leaders, who would sacrifice them to save themselves from a bit of pain. We've got some good betrayals so far, but I think we still need the lay flock to betray their priests. Oh, and we need to find something to light on fire.

“Umm, disregard the bloodbath talk,” the girl informs the crowd very seriously, because that’s how sister is always so believable. “We rescued you from your priest. He was going to sacrifice you just to save home self a bit of pain. Whereas the voice in my head wants me to find some things to burn so I can sacrifice you just because.” 

Eh, good enough. Light a fire and kill them all.

Fire is easy. Killing is too. She is strong and swift, and the voice has unattainable high standards in training. She is a scythe, and they are wheat. 

But there is quite a lot of wheat and, while she is dislodging her ancient sword from a newly-shattered rib cage, a cultist behind her manages to get a dagger into her shoulder. The girl has suffered more in the past, this pain is nothing compared to the stone table that broke her childhood, but it is a knife in her, and that brings back memories. This time though, she is free and armed. The girl moves in a blind unfeeling rage, and the cultists… not so much “fall” as “spread across the chamber’s rough floor.” 

Eventually, the girl is left standing in a sea of body parts and viscera, breathing hard, blood running down her arm. 

Hm. Acceptable work. Are you present?

“They…” she gasps. “They won’t…. I can’t… don’t make me… please father?” 

The altar… a huge slab of limestone studded with the fossilized remains of forgotten aquatic creatures. Worn, salt-stained leather straps. Rough channels for limbs, a shallow alcove for a torso, a slight depression for a head. It reminds her of that terrible stone table. 

“I’m here,” she gasps. Ignores the way her enhanced muscles burn. Ignores the tightness in her chest, the difficult rapidity of her breathing. She brings the sword down hard on the altar. A chip of shattered limestone flies across the chamber. She brings the sword down again. Another shallow gouge. 

Don't lose yourself, girl. Blow it up if you need to, we have a scroll of Shatter.

“Shatter,” she agrees, and lets the voice read the scroll. She kicks the broken chunks of rubble halfheartedly. “Now what?” 

Let's retrieve the original sacrifice. And your cloak, better if the slave doesn't recognize you.

“Cloak,” she agrees, and makes her way woodenly back to the storage room. 

The half-elf remains in the rusty cage, bound and blindfolded. She's managed to twist herself around to get some leverage pushing at the bars, but she freezes up when the heavy door creaks open.

The girl remembers when she was tied to a stone table so similar to the now-shattered altar… remembers being kept restrained in a side room while her wounds healed enough for another bout of procedures. She was never kept in a cage, but this half-elf seems almost to have her face… 

She remembers…

The deep ritual lacerations had been closed by magic, but that did nothing for the oppressive ache in her bones where the arcanist’s chisel had etched runes into her bones. That did nothing for the ache in her mind where something alien moved. 

The room was small and dark- the dark of a subterranean stone chamber without candles or lanterns. She didn’t mind though: it hurt to open her eyes. It hurt to see. It hurt to think even. 

Why, grandfather? 

He had answered that question, but she still had it rattling around in her crumbling mind. Why? 

Because mother and father are missing and the succession is in jeopardy. But why?

Because Nerissa must be protected, and who more trustworthy than her own sister. But why?

Because she will be more durable now. Stronger, faster, tougher, with wonderful innate abilities. If all else fails, one princess at least will endure. But why? 

Because King Ronan loves his granddaughters. Then why didn’t it feel like it? 

She laid there on the bed asking herself questions she already had the answers to, and wishing very much that she had died. There were no restraints on this bed. They weren’t needed. She was too weak- suffering too greatly- to stand, much less to try to escape. And even if she had? The arcanist and his assistant were just on the other side of the door. How far would she have gotten, really? 

She remembers pain…

And she remembers a voice, growing in volume and clarity as the integration proceeds, and raging violently against its bonds. It took a week for her to be able to make out its words, but weeks more for it to go quiet enough that she could even hear her own thoughts again.

The voice grows louder in her thoughts, for neither the first nor the last time.

You're losing yourself, child. Do you hear me?

“Hear you,” she confirms aloud because even after all these years she isn’t sure whether the voice can hear her thoughts as she can hear its…

Center yourself. What do you see?

“Girl,” she replies. “Crates. Cage. Blood.”

What do you smell?

“Blood,” the girl replies again. “Salt.” She sniffs her blood-soaked tunic cautiously. “Me?” 

What do you feel?

“Cold,” the girl wriggles her bare toes in the dust and muck of the floor of the little storage chamber. “Mostly just that, I think.” 

What do you hear?

“Breathing?” The girl frowns and closes her eyes. “Dripping.”

Good. Be present, be here, be conscious. Open the cage, and ask the half-elf when she was captured, and how much she knows about her captors. Do not remove the blindfold.

The girl struggles with the cage door for a second, fiddles with the lock. “Which of the cultists had  the key, so you think?” She tilts her head. 

"Um, the one who was watching me. The Speaker? He locked it last."

“I don’t see him,” the girl looks around again just to be sure. A smear of blood points towards the door. “I think we broke his brain by accident and then left him here? Do you think he ran off? I didn’t remember blood-bath-ing him outside, but I guess I don’t remember a lot of it?” The girl sighs. “Looking for his pockets will be gross.” 

"They have some tools in here somewhere. You might be able to knock the hingepins out with a hammer and nail. Or maybe pick the lock. If you know how to pick a lock with a nail. I don't know if that's difficult."

Her voice wavers, almost as though she's being rescued by a person whose only known characteristic is "pretty good at torture".

“I don’t know how to pick locks,” the girl replies. “I grew up in the castle… erm… in… not the castle? I don’t pick locks. If I need through a door, I get the voice to blow it up… oh.” She fishes out a scroll. “Knock knock?” 

Hit the lock with your sword first. Don't waste magic if muscle will do.

She strikes the lock, and her ancient nigh-indestructible blade glances off with a high ringing sound. It leaves behind a deep silver gouge in the rust-reddened metal. She strikes it again and the lock springs open. 

“The voice said to hit it, instead of magic-ing,” she explains in case the half-elf can’t hear the voice. 

"Oh! That makes sense. Does, uh, the voice have an opinion on you untying me?"

“Dunno.” The girl shrugs. “Probably wants me to kill you. People aren’t supposed to see my face. I’m supposed to ask you some questions first I think. Do you want to die? When I was trapped, I know I did, but I think I mostly don’t now?” 

"I'd rather not! But, uh, I'd like to know what the alternatives are. I can not look at your face, that's fine!"

“Look, I’m… trying,” the girls says. “I realize I’m… broken? I… if I was in your… when I was in your situation I wanted to die. If you don’t? I guess, maybe, it… gets better? Probably? So… yeah. I won’t kill you, and if I get in trouble I guess I get in trouble. Um… do you need healing? I stole potions!” 

"Well, uh, I'm not hurt right now, and..."

What possible sequence of words will not result in being chopped into several pieces when this person changes their mind?

"Do you need to, uh, talk about that?"

Probably not that one.

Hah! We've tried that one, foolish elf. Good luck.

“She’s not a foolish elf,” the girl insists. “She’s like me!” 

In that she is currently imprisoned? Her prison is finite, girl. Your bonds cannot be cut free with a steady hand.

"I'm at least mostly a foolish elf, I think. Feeling more foolish than elf right now."

“You can’t both talk. Then I get confused, and I can’t answer right, then you get confused too. She’s like me and I’m helping her!” 

The half-elf shuts up.

And how are you helping her, broken child?

“Broken child,” the girl agrees. “She doesn’t want to be killed, so we’re not killing her. That’s how I’m helping! Also, maybe sister would give her money, so she can not be a slave? Unless she still wants to be? I don’t really know I guess? Or unless sister has her killed for seeing us? I guess that probably wouldn’t be helping? Uhhhh… give her chestnuts maybe?”

Money is exchanged for goods and services. What service is she providing that your sister would value? Your sister doesn't need another free half-elf, even one who hasn't seen your face.

“Ummm?” The girl thinks for a bit. She rams her sword into a crate for safe keeping. “I don’t know what she does? Maybe she could kill cultists too? I bet she would enjoy that. It would be like us killing Arcanist Adrien.”

Your sister does not need cultists killed every day. We have gone many days without killing cultists. Unfortunately.

“Ok…” the girl thinks hard. “Ok, um, half-elf person? What do you do? Because I think probably the best thing would be for me to get sister to pay you and free you and stuff, but the voice says she’ll probably only do that in exchange for goods or services? Is… that what you want?” 

"Oh! Um... Mostly I'd like to go home? It would be neat to be...free? But I'd really prefer not to be kidnapped and sacrificed by cultists, if I have to pick! I can do some things that people would pay for, if they need them? I, um, help people, mostly. If someone gets hurt, but not enough to go to a cleric, or if they don't want the church to know? Or if they want to talk about something but they don't trust the confessor? Or if they want their kids to know how to read, but the bishop doesn't like them and won't let them into the children's school? I guess I'm kind of like a priest but if you don't want a real priest..."

“I…” the girl takes a deep breath and attempts to gather her scattered thoughts. “I’m sorry. Stupid crazy princess of Ardholm. Ruins everything. Except she’s not a princess anymore, because she went and got crazy. Told to kill the cult, cult is killed.”

She smiles as if this explains everything. The smile fades, somewhat. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she continues, “and neither will the cult. I… you can go home? I… I’m… um… I think I’m hurt, but not in a clerics kind of way?” She brushes absently at the still bleeding laceration on her shoulder. “Hurt in the brain,” she clarifies. “Is that something you can heal? Fix my brain so sister loves me again and mother and father come home?” 

"Your sister and parents aren't really in your head? So, um, it's harder for changes in your head to affect them? But that's okay! Cause you can still make changes that make your life better, or that let you feel better. Regardless of how other people act. I guess I know a little about that?"

Not addressing crazy statements about princesses. Those sound dangerous to acknowledge. Or remember.

“Ok,” the girl agrees. “So… you go home, and I clean up here, and then later I can find you and you can fix my brain, and I can get you money, and everyone will love me again and we can be friends? Does that sound alright to you?” 

"Um, that sounds pretty good? If things work like that? I could also help clean up? If you want help with that? I guess you'd need to untie me. I guess you'd need to untie me for me to go home anyway? Unless you carried me home? But I could walk without taking off the blindfold if you don't want me to see you, and I don't think I can help you clean things with the blindfold on."

“Oh, right,” the girl hastily unties her new friend, and removes the blindfold. “I’m sure it’s fine. If sister gets mad, she’ll be mad at me, not you. Probably.”  

If the half-elf has ever held a coin, read a newspaper, or attended a royal address, she may recognize the girl’s face. 

Eep!

Time to try to forget that as quickly as possible?

Meh. If she has to justify herself in a Circle of Truth she's already screwed. Avoiding new thoughtcrimes won't help.

"Oh, thank you! Do you want me to help clean, then?"

“I’ll just burn everything,” the girl shrugs. “Or ask the voice to burn everything, I mean.” 

"Okay! Then, um, should I...go? Or do I need to...tell you where I live?"

“That would probably help, yeah.” 

"I live by the...huh. I guess I don't. I live...with my mother? Outside the Sunrise Gate, near where they dry the hemp? If you ask around for the elf someone will know where she is, she lives behind the sackweavers."

“Okay!” The girl gives a very large, only slightly forced and maybe a little apprehensive smile. “Wonderful! I’ll see you there then. And then you can fix my brain and I can have a friend!” She withdraws a scroll from one of the many cases at her belt. “Probably you should go now. Everything will soon be fire.” 

Should she ask for something to sell? A cultist's ring?

No, that's evidence. She still has the book. That's the only important thing.

"Uh, thank you! I'm going to go! I'll...see you?"

“Stay safe! Don’t let any more cultists grab you.” She waves a cheery goodbye, then retrieves and cleans her sword. “Ok voice, burning man?” 

Take the jewelry first. No need to waste resources.

And the voice will read the scroll.

The girl takes the jewelry, even if she doesn’t quite understand why. It’s not like she wears jewelry after all. 

There is however surprisingly little finery of any sort- more on the lower ranks than the higher, but surprisingly little overall. And then, of course, everything is fire.  

It's an apocalypse cult, they clearly weren't in it for the snazzy perks. But they have a bit of gold anyway, which can be hidden somewhere a weaker body couldn't reach it. An inconvenient rooftop or the eaves in one of the palace's secondary chapels, perhaps. There are easier ways to obtain a chestnut.

There are indeed coins stashed beneath a rock in the priest’s study, along with a ledger of cult expenses. One of the more recent entries is for a slave. There are many previous such entries. 

The girl coughs as smoke billows. She perhaps chose an unwise order of operations. 

The ledger will perhaps be left, slightly singed, on the stairs. Where it might be found by an eventual police investigation, which will determine, amongst other things, that all the purchased slaves perished in the fire. After all, there were certainly too many bodies found to account for the incredibly small number of upstanding citizens that would ever be involved in such unsavory activities.

The smoke will damage their lungs, but not enough to kill them before the next time they get healing. The voice directs the girl to leave.

She flees the subterranean refuge, makes use of her cloak to dodge past the guards’ cordon around the crime scene that is the ground-floor shop, and then… what? Chestnuts maybe? She knows she made mistakes, but she was trying her best. 

Hm... Your performance was poor, but the experience was satisfactory. I've had my fun, you may have yours.

We passed a chestnut cart on our way here. Did you notice? They should be closing soon. Stay out of sight, and follow the cart after it closes.

The girl does as directed. Chestnuts! 

The trick is that the place where the chestnut cart goes in the evening is also the place from which it leaves in the morning. With fresh chestnuts. Look for a window or ceiling vent without a lock.

Again, the girl does as directed. 

She locates a ceiling vent with no latch. Worming her way in only takes a little squirming and a mild act of contortion. Inside, multiple trays of freshly baked candied chestnuts cool on the counter. 

Chestnuts! She eats many, and stuffs many more into her pockets. 

A successful negotiation. Not perfectly-so, but better than has been achieved since the girl entered her rebellious phase. Good enough to encourage repeating.

Take all from a whole number of trays, and put the finished trays back with the clean ones. If they are less certain of a thief, this may be possible a second time.

Oh! That makes sense! More chestnuts later! 

She does as directed. 

And with any skill, they'll be out into the night, belly full and values better-achieved.

Was this a satisfactory exchange, girl?